"Do not say that; no one could have known the direction he was going during the darkness of last night. Perhaps we shall find the sea yet."
"Even if we could, I am afraid that it will be too late to ensure your safety."
"What do you mean—that the Sofal will be gone?" she asked.
"There is that danger, of course; but what I most fear is that we may be recaptured by the Thorists. They will certainly search along the coast for us in the locality where they found us yesterday. They are not so stupid as not to guess that we will try to reach the Sofal."
"If we can find the ocean, we might hide from them," she suggested, "until they tire of the search and return to Kapdor; then, if the Sofal is still there, we may yet be saved."
"And if not, what?" I asked. "Do you know anything about Noobol? Is there not some likelihood that we may find a friendly people somewhere in this land who will aid us to reach Vepaja again?"
She shook her head. "I know little about Noobol," she replied, "but what little I have heard is not good. It is a sparsely settled land reaching, it is supposed, far into Strabol, the hot country, where no man may live. It is filled with wild beasts and savage tribes. There are scattered settlements along the coast, but most of these have been captured or reduced by the Thorists; the others, of course, would be equally dangerous, for the inhabitants would consider all strangers as enemies."
"The outlook is not bright," I admitted, "but we will not give up; we will find a way."
"If any man can, I am sure that it is you," she said.
Praise from Duare was sweet. In all the time that I had known her she had said only one other kind thing to me, and later she had retracted that.
"I could work miracles if only you loved me, Duare."
She straightened haughtily. "You will not speak of that," she said.
"Why do you hate me, Duare, who have given you only love?" I demanded.
"I do not hate you," she replied, "but you must not speak of love to the daughter of a jong. We may be together for a long time, and you must remember that I may not listen to love from the lips of any man. Our very speaking together is a sin, but circumstances have made it impossible to do otherwise.
"Before I was stolen from the house of the jong no man had ever addressed me other than the members of my own family, except a few loyal and privileged members of my father's household, and until I should be twenty it were a sin in me and a crime in any man who should disregard this ancient law of the royal families of Amtor."
"You forget," I reminded her, "that one man did address you in the house of your father."
"An impudent knave," she said, "who should have died for his temerity."
"Yet you did not inform on me."
"Which made me equally guilty with you," she replied, flushing. "It is a shameful secret that will abide with me until my death."
"A glorious memory that will always sustain my hope," I told her.
"A false hope that you would do well to kill," she said, and then, "Why did you remind me of that day?" she demanded. "When I think of it, I hate you; and I do not want to hate you."
"That is something," I suggested.
"Your effrontery and your hope feed on meager fare."
"Which reminds me that it might be well for me to see if I can find something in the way of food for our bodies, too."
"There may be game in that forest," she suggested, indicating the wood toward which we had been moving.
"We'll have a look," I said, "stand then turn back and search for the elusive sea."
* * * * *
A Venusan forest is a gorgeous sight. The foliage itself is rather pale—orchid, heliotrope and violet predominate—but the boles of the trees are gorgeous. They are of brilliant colors and often so glossy as to give the impression of having been lacquered.
The wood we were approaching was of the smaller varieties of trees, ranging in height from two hundred to three hundred feet, and in diameter from twenty to thirty feet. There were none of the colossi of the island of Vepaja that reared their heads upward five thousand feet to penetrate the eternal inner cloud envelope of the planet.
The interior of the forest was illuminated by the mysterious Venusan ground glow, so that, unlike an earthly forest of similar magnitude upon a cloudy day, it was far from dark or gloomy. Yet there was something sinister about it. I cannot explain just what, nor why it should have been.
"I do not like this place," said Duare, with a little shudder; "there is no sight of animal, no sound of bird."
"Perhaps we frightened them away," I suggested.
"I do not think so; it is more likely that there is something else in the forest that has frightened them."
I shrugged. "Nevertheless, we must have food," I reminded her, and I continued on into the forbidding, and at the same time gorgeous, wood that reminded me of a beautiful but wicked woman.
Several times I thought I saw a suggestion of movement among the boles of distant trees, but when I reached them there was nothing there. And so I pressed on, deeper and deeper; and constantly a sense of impending evil grew stronger as I advanced.
"There!" whispered Duare suddenly, pointing. "There is something there, behind that tree. I saw it move."
Something, just glimpsed from the corner of my eye, caught my attention to the left of us; and as I turned quickly in that direction something else dodged behind the bole of a large tree.
Duare wheeled about. "There are things all round us!"
"Can you make out what they are?" I asked.
"I thought that I saw a hairy hand, but I am not sure. They move quickly and keep always out of sight. Oh, let us go back! This is an evil place, and I am afraid."
"Very well," I agreed. "Anyway, this doesn't seem to be a particularly good hunting ground; and after all that is all that we are looking for."
As we turned to retrace our steps a chorus of hoarse shouts arose upon all sides of us—half human, half bestial, like the growls and roars of animals blending with the voices of men; and then, suddenly, from behind the boles of trees a score of hairy, manlike creatures sprang toward us.
* * * * *
Instantly I recognized them—nobargans—the same hairy, manlike creatures that had attacked the abductors of Duare, whom I had rescued from them. They were armed with crude bows and arrows and with slings from which they hurled rocks; but, as they closed upon us, it appeared that they wished to take us alive, for they launched no missiles at us.
But I had no mind to be thus taken so easily, nor to permit Duare to fall into the hands of these savage beast-men. Raising my pistol, I loosed the deadly r-ray upon them; and as some fell others leaped behind the boles of the trees.
"Do not let them take me," said Duare in a level voice unshaken by emotion. "When you see there is no further hope of escape, shoot me."
The very thought of it turned me cold, but I knew that I should do it before permitting her to fall into the hands of these degraded creatures.
A nobargan showed himself, and I dropped him with my pistol; then they commenced to hurl rocks at me from behind. I wheeled and fired, and in the same instant a rock felled me to the ground unconscious.
When I regained consciousness I was aware first of an incredible stench, and then of something rough rubbing against my skin, and of a rhythmic jouncing of my body. These sensations were vaguely appreciable in the first dim light of returning reason. With the return of full control of my faculties they were accounted for; I was being carried across the shoulder of a powerful nobargan.
The odor from his body was almost suffocating in its intensity, and the rough hair abrading my skin was only a trifle more annoying than the motion that his stride imparted to my body.
I sought to push myself from his shoulder; and, realizing that I was no longer unconscious, he dropped me to the ground. All about me were the hideous faces and hairy bodies of the nobargans and permeating the air the horrid stench that emanated from them.